Category Archives: Republican

In an interview with WTOP this week, Youngkin said of the Virginia gubernatorial election that "it's certainly not about President Trump. There are two people on the ballot and that's me and Terry McAuliffe."

Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate in Virginias race for governor, has treaded lightly around the issue of former President Donald Trump over the course of his campaign, and hes starting to get some public pressure from Trump to be more openly supportive.

In an interview with radio host John Fredericks on Thursday, Trump was asked whether he thought Youngkin, a political newcomer, could beat his Democratic opponent former Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

Trump responded by saying, I do, but you know what I find? The only guys that win are the guys that embrace the MAGA movement, referring to his Make America Great Again movement.

The former president went on to suggest that Youngkin should stop trying to play it down the middle.

When they try to go down a railroad track, you know, Hey, oh yeah, sure, love it, love it. Oh, yeah, love Trump. Love Trump. OK, lets go, next subject. When they do that, they never win. They have to embrace it, Trump said.

More Virginia News

More Local Politics and Election News

While Youngkin once said that President Trump represents so much of why Im running, he has since carefully tiptoed around Trump-related questions.

In an interview with WTOP this week, Youngkin said of the Virginia gubernatorial election that its certainly not about President Trump. There are two people on the ballot and thats me and Terry McAuliffe.

When asked if he would vote for Trump if he ran for president again, Youngkin responded by saying: I dont know if hes going to run for president again.

Youngkin has repeatedly said that President Joe Biden was legitimately elected, in contrast to Trump, who said the election was stolen.

Despite Trumps nudging of Youngkin during the Thursday interview, he later sent an email to supporters saying that Terry McAuliffe was a badly failed Governor and including a link to a University of Mary Washington pollshowing Youngkin leading.

It showed that, among likely voters, 48% favored Youngkin while 43% picked McAuliffe. Of registered voters, it was 46% for McAuliffe and 41% for Youngkin.

The poll included 1,000 Virginia residents, was conducted from Sept. 7-13 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

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Republican in Va. governors race receives warning from Trump - WTOP

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Today on The Argument, do Kara Swisher, Ezra Klein and I agree on anything?

This week, Im doing something a little different. Instead of a typical debate, today Im doing a special roundtable discussion on the stuff in the news that I and my colleagues cant stop thinking and arguing about. Im joined by my fellow hosts from New York Times Opinion. Kara Swisher is the host of Sway, and Ezra Klein hosts The Ezra Klein Show. And as youll hear, we agree on some things, but definitely not everything. Well be back next week with a regular Argument episode. And its going to be a barn burner. First, heres Ezra kicking off our conversation.

Jane, Kara, hello.

Hello.

Hey, how are you doing?

How are you feeling, Kara? I hear youre a little froggy over there.

Im a little froggy. Its really bad because Ive got 103 interviews to do in the next two days. So itll be fine. Too much screaming at the kids.

Yeah, well, and probably theyre bringing all the germs. Ive been getting sick now that people are doing stuff. My son keeps coming home with a snotty nose.

Yes.

We got a lot to cover today. Were going to talk about the media. Were going to talk about Facebook. Were going to talk about all kinds of different things. But I want to begin where I live in California, where the recall effort just got stomped into the ground. Gavin Newsom won by about 27 points. And he won by that much in part because the Republicans, to the extent they unite around anybody, united around the most terrifying possible candidate to most Californians. Jane, when we worked at Vox, you did a great piece about the California Republican Party and what it had become. And I thought about that piece a lot over the past couple of weeks. So Im curious how you read the Republicans in this election and what California Republicans are.

So, as I wrote back in 2018 in this piece, the California Republican Party is largely an entity that exists to produce conservative/anti-liberal thought in other places. Like, the degree to which California conservatives have largely given up on California as evidenced by, I think, running a conservative radio host who has said many conservative radio host things, instead of someone who is purely going to be aimed at Gavin Newsom, I think is evidence of that. One of the things I found interesting about this is that this election or this recall potentially could have been successful if Democrats were caught napping and Republicans could coalesce around someone who was like, Im not Gavin Newsom. I will never go to French Laundry while you cant go to things. I will never do these things that appear to annoy you. Instead, they went with a conservative radio host in Larry Elder, who very much started out by saying that Joe Biden won the election and then backtracked, because thats what you have to do in a conservative media ecosystem right now not in California in conservative radio. Its interesting how this was where the nationalization of politics really bit back for Republicans, because this became a race about how Larry Elder was going to get rid of all Covid-related mandates, and he was going to discourage vaccination. Whether or not he would have, it just became this nationalized race. And it became about him, not about Gavin Newsom. And it was very easy to say, Larry Elder is basically Trump. He invited Trump into this race. And if Californians arent that thrilled about Gavin Newsom, they are especially not that thrilled about Donald Trump.

You know what surprised me, Kara, was that none of the super rich, super cranky, super I can do anything better than anybody else billionaires out in Silicon Valley put themselves on the ballot. There had been talk of that. They are filled with criticisms of how Democrats run California. And I thought that was a kind of from the side, a little bit independent candidacy that could have been pretty dangerous to Newsom.

Sure.

Im curious how you read the absence of any of them

Well

in the final options.

Well, they dont like to be inconvenienced, right? [LAUGHTER] Thats the whole thing. But I thought Chamath Palihapitiya hes a big investor, former Facebook executive might have run. He sort of teased it, but then said no. And I did a Q&A with him in The Times about what happened. But you know, they just like to get on Twitter and be huffy. And then they were leaving California. Im like, just leave. Just leave. Goodbye, see you later. Whats interesting is there are a couple of things, what Jane was talking about is, look, Californias not in the worst shape, right? Theres a budget surplus. Covid rates right now are declining rather precipitously. Obviously, it has huge problems with homelessness, et cetera. But that was way before Covid and will continue for a long, long time. And I think in general, people are not necessarily French Laundry aside, which I thought was a real mistake on Newsoms part, since hes been so tough on Covid stuff I think people are pretty OK with him. They dont necessarily love him, you know? But they dont dislike him. And thats what I think is interesting.

Yeah, there is this glut in conservative media of why Im leaving California stories

Yeah, whatever. See ya.

and why everyones moving to Miami or Austin or something. But I think that theres an idea that is going to turn into a political movement of sorts.

Its like dont let the door hit you. Dont let the excellent produce hit you on the way out. Just go. [LAUGHTER] You made all your money here. California gave you all kinds of opportunity. Kick it in the teeth and leave. I think whats interesting about Newsom, that speech he gave I dont know, Ezra, what you thought of it. I thought it was quite graceful, given he could have kicked them back in the teeth. And hes been a big supporter of tech and has not, like a lot of California politicians, has kind of let them roll all over everybody, essentially. So Im just curious what you imagine that speech was about?

I think Newsom understands that even being threatened with a serious recall campaign does not mean youre in the strongest position. And so hes not trying to be a factional governor. Hes trying to re-establish himself with a pretty stunning victory here as a governor who can credibly represent California. You dont want to be the guy who squeaked through. And to his credit, he, in the end, wasnt. But I did a piece right before the recall actually happened, where I chatted with him for it. But before I chatted with him, what Id been doing was running through the Democrats record in California. And particularly in the last 18 months, the amount of actual legislating they have done is astonishing. I mean, they passed a universal transitionary kindergarten program, so basically an entire new grade of school for four-year-olds. They put $12 billion into homelessness. Well see what comes of it, but we dont see an investment like that anywhere else in the country. They just signed right after the recall they passed before through the legislature, but Newsom signed right after a series of bills on housing that, among other things, end single-family zoning in California. Theres this huge list. And this goes, I think, to your point, Kara Newsom wants to be seen and wants to be understood as one of the great governors, one of the transformational governors of California. And what he somehow needs to do is get himself out of the way so the record can actually speak and also be implemented because getting all this policy done, particularly during the period of Covid, is going to be very, very, very difficult. But I think on some level, he gets that. And so the question that hes sort of asking is, can he just get Californians to hold on long enough, such that the easing of Covid can really be felt at the same time that the spending down of the surplus that they are tossing around like Oprah money now begins to reverberate in the lives of everyday Californians? If he can get to the other side of that without overly polarizing himself, he has a possibility to look in the long run like a great governor.

Im curious how does the elitism I think that is his real problem. He looks elite. He sounds elite. Everything about him is like elite liberal, although I dont think hes quite as liberal as people make him out to be, right? So thats his big, scary weakness, I would say.

I wrote this in the beginning of the piece. I think that Newsom is fascinating because the reality of his politics is an inversion of his reputation. Newsom looks to people like a guy whos all style and no substance. Hes got this super coiffed hair. He looks like the guy you would cast to play a slippery politician in a movie. He had this very tabloidy personal life, particularly back when he was in San Francisco. He makes these terrible mistakes, like French Laundry.

And Kimberly Guilfoyle, but go ahead. [LAUGHTER]

Yes, and Guilfoyle. But the truth of Newsom is that its like perfectly the inverse. Hes a stylistically very weak politician whos constantly misjudging situations, and substantively, a pretty good one, whos passed a lot of good policy and really does understand a lot of the issues California is facing, can give you chapter and verse on a lot of the things that theyre working through the legislature. Not a perfect governor by any means, but I think this is the essential paradox of Newsom. I think I wrote it this way, that hes like an earnest nerd who presents as a slick jock. And hes never found a way to out-communicate that.

I once told him his skin was just too nice. I know it sounds terrible and completely lookist. He was like, why do you think people dont believe me? Im like, youre too handsome.

Let me ask Jane one thing before we move off of Newsom, which is one of the things youre hearing from Newsoms team, from Democrats, is that running on tough Covid regulations was actually a huge winner for them. Even if you look nationally right now, vaccine mandates poll really well. Most people are vaccinated, and they want other people to be vaccinated. And so the one thing Im hearing Democrats consider extracting out of the recall campaign is really seeing possibly tough Covid regulations as something that could help them politically over the next year, even into the midterms when that happens. Do you think theres something to that?

I mean, I think it goes to maybe Im just going to have to do a giant the nationalization of politics is generally bad because I do think its on a state by state basis. Like, for instance, theres a race going on right now in Virginia. Im in Washington, D.C. So Virginia its over there somewhere. Right now, Youngkin, whos the Republican candidate, is getting hit really hard on being close to Trump. The Virginia Democrats are going really hard on Covid related stuff. But I also think if you are trying to win down ballot races or youre trying to win in more purple states because increasingly, Virginia is a blue state until proven otherwise, I think that that wont work. I do agree, though, that one of the challenges weve had is that we have heard a lot about extremely loud people coming to school board meetings and screaming about masks. But the vast majority of people are not like that. The challenge will be, can you build a winning coalition on being tougher on Covid? I mean, its not a very satisfying answer, but I think itll depend on where you are.

So speaking of nationalizing everything, Jane, I think you want to talk a bit about the media.

I do, and Im annoyed. Im incredibly annoyed, and I need to be told whether or not my annoyance is justified, because I want to talk about how the media reports on and criticizes other media. This is one of those moments in which I recognize that I am a part of the media. I am a part of the problem.

Its media all the way down.

It really is. Now, you may have seen Fox News posted a story about media frets over too many white Emmy winners. And then there was a dust-up between Politico and a Washington Post columnist that then Fox News reported on ad nauseum. Theres a lot of reporting on people writing on Substack and just a lot of people going back and forth and back and forth about the media. And it is driving me absolutely insane.

You mean the people on Substack. The hot take hacks thats what I call them.

Some of them are, and some of them are just on Substack.

Yeah, good. Yeah.

But even the conversation about Substack is one of those moments where Im like, OK, why is it seeming to overtake talking about the news that is actually happening?

Because it scares the media. Because Substack scares media companies, it scares media people. Theres also a bunch of FOMO. Like, should I be on Substack earning a million dollars? Which you wont.

Right.

I think thats totally normal, dont you think? Its like Hollywood right now obsessing over streaming, but that counts, actually.

I want to cut to different kinds of media takes here aside, because I dont think anybodys having Substack conversation, except, like, 50 people on Twitter and Substack. That does not strike me as something that has erupted into wider consciousness.

Exactly! So we should stop doing it.

Well, Im not talking about it. I said

Good!

that specifically so I wouldnt have to talk about it for the rest of this episode.

Amazing. Perfect.

Im not going to be part of the problem. Im going to be the change I seek to see in the world. I like a lot of Substack, so I think its all fine. This is a place where Im going to speak up for the right wing critique of things. Not that the media is all liberal and fake news and everything, but something the right has understood for a very long time is that the media as an institution is really important in a way that media as an institution does not want to admit. The media as an institution is a super important political actor, who we choose to cover how we cover what stories, to the point you were just making, Jane, we choose. Those are incredibly important. And because the media wants to pretend that it is some kind of unbiased mirror to the world, not those of us who are in the opinion section, but elsewhere in the world

Right.

the media has a lot of trouble explaining the role it is playing and the frameworks through which it is trying to play that role well. And so it falls to people outside of it who feel ill served by it to make a big issue out of it. But then the problem is there is no one media anymore I mean, if there ever was. But there really is not now. And then social media is not a media in the way that a network news channel is. And so I would like to say, I think media criticism is very worth doing. I just think we need way better media criticism because these little gossipy flare-ups, they are trading on deep feelings people have that the media is important and it doesnt represent them. But its not able to get at that real conversation that is a worthwhile one and might have.

But they do. But people do not trust the media. I dont know how many relatives you have, depending on where, but I often get relatives saying I dont trust the media, and Im in the media. Ive even had my mom I did an interview with Hillary Clinton, and she called me up and she said, you cant believe what Hillary Clinton just said. And she then repeated back to me via the Fox filter. And I was like, no, no, thats not what she said. And she goes, oh, thats your opinion. And I was like, no, she talked to me. Like, I was the one who did the interview and it was like astonishing. And then the media, which is so manifestly insecure, then seizes upon it and gets into a big cycle of being defensive, when you should just, like every other industry, some of us suck, some of us dont. When we make mistakes, we try to admit it. The media also gets so insecure that they cant help but feel bad that people dont like them.

I also do think when people are like, oh, I dont trust the media, that implicitly says to me like, I trust some media. I just dont trust you. Its just like youve got your media, and Ive got my media, and our mediums hate each other. And then they fight. And I get concerned sometimes that the overemphasis on the media turns into a moment in which Im like, I would also be distrustful of institutions that seem to mostly discuss themselves and people like them.

See, unlike Ezra, I think social media has ruined the media because everybody can say something. You dont know where the sourcing is sometimes. Its taken apart the already tenuous relationship media had with its users and has blown it wide open. And so everybody has a voice. Everyones screaming past each other. And so the power of media, especially institutions, like The New York Times and other places, has just going to be diminished, even if a lot of important people do pay attention to it.

Do you think, though, that this is something because what are we thinking about social media the entity that I think about is Twitter, but most people, most journalists are on Twitter, most people in general are not.

Facebook is where they are.

Yes.

Yeah.

But Twitter drives the entire media because all the journalists are there. I mean, were going to talk about Facebook in a minute I have said this forever, I think the biggest problem in the direct media is the medias intense reliance and presence in Twitter. We are all talking to each other and its not just to the point Kara was making. Yes, everybody has a voice. And some people a voice are terrible, and theyve got big followings, but also the media tweets like nobody is watching.

That is a good line Ezra.

And look Im very sympathetic to the idea that people were too constrained in the media for a long time. But I logged on to Twitter and I always think to myself, you know everybody can read this, right? People act on Twitter in a way that is not well designed to increase trust in them or their institutions, and then they turn like why does nobody like or trust me anymore? [LAUGHTER]

I am often texting media people at night saying, get off, put it down. [LAUGHTER] But if youre not a professional, youre crashing your care into the wall.

Youre like the Twitter guardian Angel?

I do it all the time, Im like put it down. Im a professional, put it down.

Ezra Klein: So Kara The Wall Street Journal has been publishing the series called The Facebook Files, and to sum up a few of the major findings, Facebook lied about equal application of standards, they have whats basically a V.I.P. pass exempting celebrities and notable people from some rules. Maybe not all. They withheld research about the negative mental health impact of Instagram especially on teen girls, and despite promises to the contrary, Facebook was a major source of misinformation about the pandemic and the vaccine. So Im curious what you think of all this. Oh, it goes on. Doesnt it? The beat goes on. Nick Clegg who is the head of global affairs had a reaction to it, which was sort of a non-reaction, reaction or one of those non-denial, denial kind of things. Where he said, its complex

Its all true, but how dare you?

Well, no. I dont know what he said. He just got on there he said, its complex and were not evil. And I was like, OK, we didnt think either of these things were not true. I think what was powerful about the Journal pieces and the times its done great pieces doing a lot of people have. Casey Newton and many others, is that its just more proof of what we already thought. As it builds, it sort of gives us a picture of something we already know about them but adds more data and more documentation to whats happening in there. Which is, I think more of a hot mess than other people do. I dont think its calculated I think its sloppy. I think the architecture is rotten. And Im not sure its fixable the way its set up. Especially the constant shifting of priorities. And lastly, that everything rises and falls with Mark Zuckerberg. And he is completely incapable of doing this. The wisest person in the world couldnt do this job, and he, I am sorry to say, is not the wisest person in the world.

If youve got that kind of ehh feeling about Facebook two months ago, what has been learned that should change that in any way?

I think some of this data about girls, young girls, and the toxicity of Instagram for it, and you know Facebooks working on, Oh my God, Instagram for kids. Like no stop, right now. It was a lot of data around it and some of the research that Facebook did about itself, which is good. Thats great to look at yourself, but that didnt act upon as some people in the company thought. And thats why youre getting all these documents because people inside the company are just tossing documents over the wall, because theyre tired of it I suspect. I think it just continued to show in a wide range of areas, whether it was how celebrities and famous people are treated, the impact on kids, the difficulty of managing misinformation on the platform, and the fact that one person makes all the decisions. Its the same through line, though, is that this place is impossible to manage because its so big and so powerful.

And like, the challenge we have is that, every single time Facebook has gone before congressional hearings, all that has been displayed is that members of Congress have no idea what Facebook page or how it works.

Thats not true. The recent David Cicilline ones in his report was excellent, was fantastic actually. One of the things thats interesting about this, is that Facebook continues to fend off this stuff because were so disorganized. Look over whats going on in China, theyre taking over tech right now. Theyve decided its too powerful and theyre just taking over the place. I think one of the problems politically is that Facebook knows our political system is chaotic in normal times. And now its really chaotic, theyve hired a mess of lobbyists and PR people and everyone else to stave off whats inevitable. And so it just goes on. And by the way shareholders are rewarding them quite a lot still no matter what.

One of the problems with them it always seems to me, is that theyre running something that is on the scale now of a global governance system or a religion maybe. I mean, things dont operate on that multibillion person scale and one of the repeated revelations of the Journal reporting, but also all reporting and also if you just look at what is happening on Facebook for 20 minutes, is that they dont have policies that are equally and fairly applied. And of course, they dont. For the most part, things of that scale very rarely do, but what things at that scale tend to have, is some reason to believe in the legitimacy of the outcome. So if you are the U.S. government, in theory there are elections and the whole system of government, and theres representation, right? Theres representation. And if youre the Catholic Church like in theory the Pope is the Gods representative on Earth, so theres at least divine authority. And the problem I see with what Facebook has been trying to do, one place I would give them a little bit of credit is that for years in a way, you dont see in that many companies, theyre trying to be creative with how to constrain themselves at least a little bit. They tried to create this Facebook Supreme Court-style situation. They do try to create policies, and try to create boards, and so on. Theyre trying to create within it a kind of thing that looks almost like a government, but my critique of them is always they are doing so without representation. Like its all a bit of a show game because in the end, its only Mark Zuckerberg there with his super shares who has true power over this situation. Theyre not trying to create a situation where the Facebook users can vote on what the policy should be and how they should be applied, nothing. And so in the end its just them running something that is too big for any just them to be legitimate doing.

I think what theyre doing is hand waving and with all that stuff. They dont mean it. They dont, they meant it Mark Zuckerberg could be fired like most other C.E.O.s in this country or anywhere else. Secondly, if they have this much power and refuse to be transparent, all this stuff around research, that just says to you, theyre just hand waving at everybody and until Mark Zuckerberg can be fired or until they can be sued, nothings going to happen here. And their shares go up, are you kidding? Nobody is going to change this situation even if it has a deleterious effect on people. And then they can say, Oh you know what, we didnt cause Jan 6. Well, thats not what were saying. Were saying your tools in the hands of malevolent players are super dangerous, but we have no power over them whatsoever, and thats going to be the problem. Even if theyre the nicest people in the world, which they try, were not a terrible people. Stop impugning No one is saying theyre Thanos. Some people are, thats not true. But what were saying is you are imperfect people, with an imperfect platform, and youre making decisions that affect people rather significantly on very serious issues like vaccinations, and getting people into a state of rage almost constantly. Thats the real problem is this addiction rage, self-esteem circle that affects the psyche of people.

Especially because the algorithms are encouraging this, I really recommend well link it in our show notes, but the research that Instagram is well aware of the mental health impact that Instagram can have on teen girls and on teen boys, and its well aware of this. Facebook has publicly played down the apps negative impacts. They havent make the research available. And I think that thats something where you have a company that is being duplicitous. It is being duplicitous because it can be. Because it assumes that you will eventually move on. There is a memo that was by Facebook Vice President Andrew Bosworth, who said that maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe when someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools, and still we connect people.

Guns dont kill people, people kill people, its the same thing. Its the same thing. But Im curious Ezra as to your thoughts on this as someone whos been thinking about the intersection of this industry with politics, the political solutions, and what this means for our polarization problem. A thing I hear you wrote a book about.

I did, I did. This is just hard. Let me just Ill quickly make the argument from Facebooks perspective, so somebody has, which is: They are running a multi-billion person platform. And you will have all the good and the bad of humanity on it. You will have all of the bullying, and also people getting together to raise money for kidneys. And youll have also just a lot of banal stuff where people are saying, did you did you see the thing that happened on TV last night. I think a lot of this is a dodge, because they are amplifying peoples emotions to highly engaging material. And so its like you take human interactions and you run them through an emotion amplification machine, and I dont think thats healthy. But thats their view of it, and to the point about political solutions to the extent there are any, these are hard. I mean, I see in politics people often trying to fit the problem of social media into a box that I dont think is quite the right one. So we have recognized approaches to things like antitrust, Facebook should not have been allowed to buy Instagram. I think now, that is like looked back on as a pretty clear mistake. But that doesnt mean that if they didnt buy Instagram you would not have the problem of the company Instagram, which is now a gigantic company, and is running itself in a way that is bad for many teens. Because of course having young people live their lives on a platform that is seeing curated photos of their friends, and how much more fun everybody else is having and how they look and so on is going to be bad for you. Like of course its going to be bad for you. So there is a broad problem here of what if society is just choosing to spend a lot of time on technologies, that for some value of we, some of we dont think are good. And the thing I will sometimes hear from Facebook people and Kara Im sure you hear this more than I do, is you know what, candy bars arent good for you either. And white bread isnt good for you either. And the tricky thing here, is you are making value judgments on what is OK for people. There are things in society we dont allow people to do certain kinds of drugs and by scorpion missile launchers, but mostly we say, if you want to buy things that are bad for you to eat or you want to buy alcohol and youre over 21 even though you might be an alcoholic, we let you do it. And Facebook has a lot of those, and Instagram has a lot of those dimensions in addition to, of course other dimensions that are fine. Politics doesnt have a good language for that.

Theres no laws. This is as if you built a city and everybody pays you rent by way of their data, right? So you live in the city, you dont get police, you dont get water, you dont get stopped signs, you dont get fire people, you dont get regular food, youre just on your own and its the purge. And then they write, they have the audacity to write you: Well, its a free country. And so at some point, theyve got to put in speed limits. Theyve got to put in warning labels. If they want to play like this, then lets have some real teeth behind it and then people can make their decision. But they wont do that, because they know that our country unlike China or some other places are not going to crack down on them. Now in other countries India, and just now in Russia you just saw that just happen. They cracked down. They understand the power of this thing. Even if theyre authoritarians, they get it. And so they rely on us being the most dysfunctional democracy so that they can continue to do what they want, and then try to say that theyre virtuous. Theyre not virtuous, theyre just not.

I do not feel good about the terms crack down and comparisons like, I think thats the complicated thing here is that the Russian government could care less about the impact that these outlets are having on young women and on bullying. That was for political purposes. And I think that thats something when you hear from some on the right who are very much about like, oh, we need to crack down those platforms. Their issue is that sometimes if you say something mean about Donald Trump or a lie about vaccines, you might get your post removed, and theyre mad about that. So I think that thats the thing that concerns me here is that the incentives behind how we would think about a regulatory environment are so different depending on the politics of the people. Like theres a lot of talk about antitrust with relation to other I think there was a house committee that essentially ruled that Facebook needs to be broken up, and that these entities are too big. But again like, I dont know, Im concerned.

Its very hard to break them up. The way theyve constructed it, is the thing. What do you break up, precisely?

Well even if you do break it up do you do the things youve broken up now just have more incentiveto compete in even more destructive ways for market share, because they cant cross-subsidize from the thing. This is my only point on regulating these things which I think everybody knows Im pretty for, is that you have to define which problem youre trying to deal with at any given time, very tightly. And you might need to do a lot of different things. The issue for anti-competitive practices by Facebook or by Amazon might be very different. The solutions for that issue might be very different than solutions for we think Instagram is bad for kids. Like those are two separate problems and you could solve one without solving the other, but currently we are solving neither. I think that is a good place to come to a close here. So were going to do what recommendations around a book, a movie, a TV show, some good you like. I see youre doing constant monitoring, glucose monitoring in your newsletter now Kara.

Yeah.

So weird gadget, whatever you want. Jane

Im downing honey right now, Im sure my glucose is off the charts right this second. [LAUGHTER]

I want to recommend two books that Im reading simultaneously because one is an upper and one is a downer. The downer is Anthony Beevors The Fall of Berlin 1945, which is fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. It is also devastating. About the Eastern Front of the Second World War which is something I knew a lot about, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on that subject and yet somehow there are things that I read here and then I need to take a long soothing walk to get over having read. But Im also reading Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by the great science writer Mary Roach, which deals with things like what do you do when elephants kill people, and how do you deal with killer trees, or bears, or cougars. Which I assume are issues that you have in California. I dont know. Its wild out there, but both books are great. Read them simultaneously because it really helps balance it out. Its like having kale and ice cream but good together.

Kara.

I think you just talked about continuous glucose monitoring, Im super interested in stuff like that. This sort of quantified self is it selfie? I guess you call it. I would recommend Michael Pollans latest book, This is Your Mind On Plants. I think anything he writes is really interesting. This is about opium, coffee, and mescaline essentially. And I think its really interesting because Ive been interviewing a lot of people lately about these trials around the use of psychotropic drugs in PTSD and depression, and you can all laugh, ha ha Im on a trip. But some of this stuff is incredible promise, and is moving through including up to and including LSD and things like that.

And I recommend actually just some straight-up fiction, nothing too heavy, Ive been into a fantasy series. Its called silk punk, so its very Asian-inflected, by Ken Liu called The Dandelion Dynasty. Ken Liu is super interesting. Hes won a bunch of awards for short fiction. Hes the translator of two of the Three Body Problem series books. But these books are just really cool if youre into a good story that is both like highly about science and gods but also just about how governance would work in a somewhat feudal society, and how a revolution would work. I loved it. The first one is called The Grace of Kings, the second one, is also great and the third one has just come out. But you should begin with The Grace of Kings, and the whole series is called The Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu. Well, Jane, Kara, thank you all so much. This was a lot of fun.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks so much to Kara and Ezra for chatting with me. You can subscribe to their shows Sway, and The Ezra Klein Show in your favorite listening app, and next week Ill be back with an argument you wont want to miss.

This episode was produced by Phoebe Lett, Annie Galvin, and Roge Kama. It was edited by Stephanie Joyce, Alison Bruzek and Nayeema Raza. Engineering, music and sound design by Isaac Jones and Sonia Herrero. Fact checking by Kate Sinclair, Michelle Harris and Kristin Lin. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special Thanks to Matt Kwong, Daphne Chen and Blakeney Schick. 438 00:34:07,060 > 00:34:16,000

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Opinion | How They Failed: California Republicans, Media Critics and Facebook - The New York Times

Im old enough to remember when the Republican party stood for limited government and Ronald Reagan thundered Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.

Todays Republican party, while still claiming to stand for limited government, is practicing just the opposite: government intrusion everywhere.

Republican lawmakers are banning masks in schools. Iowa, Tennessee, Utah, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona and South Carolina are prohibiting public schools from requiring students wear them.

Republican states are on the way to outlawing abortions. Texas has just banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know theyre pregnant. Other Republican states are on the way to enacting similar measures.

Republican lawmakers are forbidding teachers from telling students about Americas racist past. State legislatures from Tennessee to Idaho are barring all references to racism in the classroom.

Republican legislators are forcing transgender students to play sports and use bathrooms according to their assigned gender at birth. Thirty-three states have introduced more than 100 bills aimed at curbing the rights of transgender people.

Across the country, Republican lawmakers are making it harder for people to vote. So far, theyve enacted more than 30 laws that reduce access to polling places, number of days for voting, and availability of absentee voting.

This is not limited government, folks. To the contrary, these Republican lawmakers have a particular ideology, and they are now imposing those views and values on citizens holding different views and values.

This is big government on steroids.

Many Republican lawmakers use the word freedom to justify what theyre doing. Thats rubbish. What theyre really doing is denying people their freedom freedom to be safe from Covid, freedom over their own bodies, freedom to learn, freedom to vote and participate in our democracy.

Years ago, the Republican party had a coherent idea about limiting the role of government and protecting the rights of the individual. I disagreed with it, as did much of the rest of America. But at least it was honest, reasoned, and consistent. As such, Republicans played an important part in a debate over what we wanted for ourselves and for America.

Today, Republican politicians have no coherent view. They want only to be re-elected, even if that means misusing government to advance a narrow and increasingly anachronistic set of values intruding on the most intimate aspects of life, interfering in what can be taught and learned, risking the publics health, banning whats necessary for people to exercise their most basic freedoms.

This is not mere hypocrisy. The Republican party now poses a clear and present threat even to the values it once espoused.

Originally posted here:

Republicans once called government the problem now they want to run your life - The Guardian

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was once a close adviser to former President Trump, told Republicans gathered at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Thursday evening that the party must "face the realities of the 2020 election," discredit the "extremists in our midst" and "renounce the conspiracy theories."

While Mr. Trump remains popular among a significant segment of Republicans not yet weary of his false claims of election fraud, Christie addressed those who are.

"We need to give our supporters facts that will help them put all those fantasies to rest so everyone can focus with clear minds on the issues that really matter," Christie said. "We need to quit wasting our time, our energy, and our credibility on claims that won't ever convince anyone of anything."

"All this lying has done harm to our nation, to our party, and to each other," he said, and he sought to remind the audience of the Republican Party's values, which he listed as conservatism, faith, decency, integrity, freedom, liberty, competence and truth.

The former New Jersey governor, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and lost to Mr. Trump, was invited to speak as part of the library's Time for Choosing speaker series. Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared as part of the series, and former House Speaker Paul Ryan gave the inaugural speech. Ryan, too, slammed the former Republican president and the hold he has over the party.

"If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we're not going anywhere. Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle," Ryan said, adding, "They will not be impressed by the sight of yes-men and flatterers flocking to Mar-a-Lago."

Christie also went after Republicans who indulge Mr. Trump's election claims, saying that "pretending we won when we lost is a waste of time and energy and credibility" while he urged Republican supporters to denounce the conspiracy theories and fight back against liberals with conservative ideas.

The former New Jersey governor derided GOP political operatives who he said are urging Republican lawmakers to nod and pretend to agree with the liars and conspiracy theorists. "And whatever you do, don't upset the truth deniers," Christie said.

No man or woman -- whatever wealth they've acquired or office they hold, is "worthy of blind faith and obedience," he warned.

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In speech taking on Trump, Christie calls on Republicans to renounce conspiracy theories and discredit extremists "in our midst" - CBS News

Nobody would ever confuse Boston with a Republican stronghold; the city hasnt elected a GOP mayor since the 1920s, and these days the party almost never bothers even to run a candidate in mayoral or city council elections. This year, all five major candidates are Democrats.

Still, almost half of Bostons voters backed Republican Charlie Baker for governor in 2018. Even Donald Trump won 45,000 votes in the city, about 15 percent of the electorate, with clusters of support in South Dorchester, West Roxbury, and South Boston.

With this years preliminary mayoral campaign entering its final days, and polls predicting an extremely close race, those numbers loom large. Boston might not have enough Republicans or Republican-leaning voters to actually elect a mayor but its still a rich, often-overlooked trove of votes that could help boost one of those Democrats.

Openly courting Republican votes, of course, carries risk, since it could antagonize far more numerous Democrats. But Republicans are choosing sides, in ways that reflect their own divisions.

Jennifer Nassour, the former chairwoman of the Massachusetts Republican Party and former Boston City Council candidate, is a self-described social progressive who supports abortion rights and gay marriage. Nassour believes many voters in the city who identify as Republicans are unenrolled, a group that makes up 45 percent of registered voters. Yet, she said, it always seems like issues are skewed all the way to the left. But we [Republicans] are here, and we have issues that are important to us that arent political . . . . Its quality-of-life issues. You cannot put a political party on quality of life.

Nassour is openly supporting Andrea Campbell for mayor. As for how her Republican fellows will vote, she said that she encourages them, [E]ven if you cant get a candidate who is exactly like you in all policies, its important to find a candidate who represents the character of the person youd like to see in office.

Nassour said she has hosted virtual house parties with her friends, who are probably unenrolled and lean more right-of-center, she said. I think their interests in the city are education, housing, making sure that our roads are safe, that our streets are safe, making sure that quality of life is good.

But not every GOP voter would fit in at one of Nassours house parties. Perhaps the most passionate, or at least the most identifiable, shade of Republican voter is the Trump supporter. Consider one of the superPACs backing councilor Annissa Essaibi George, Real Progress Boston, which is led by former Boston Police commissioner William Gross. Its top donors: police unions and Jim Davis, the New Balance chairman who donated almost $400,000 to Trump in 2016. This week, Essaibi George sought to distance herself from the PAC, telling the Dorchester Reporter that shes not happy about the PACs ties to Trump.

Then theres the perennial candidate for mayor in the city, Robert Cappucci, who also made Tuesdays ballot. The last time Cappucci ran, in 2017, he drew nearly 7 percent of votes, or roughly 3,700. The retired Boston police officer and former elected school committee member is a conservative Democrat, but his positions may be more aligned with those of a Republican voter: He is antiabortion and also against sanctuary cities.

Cappucci may very well earn the vote of Trump supporters in Boston. But those voters may not represent the traditional Republican view.

I think that most Republicans like myself who happen to be super invested in the city are going to vote for a mayor whos going to be there in the long term, Nassour said. We want to make sure the mayor is going to be responsive to what we want as residents of the city despite the letter next to our name. Someone who is not in bed with the unions and someone who is not opportunistic. Someone who really truly knows the hardships of the city.

Although theyre hardly unified, Boston Republicans are the largely silent voting minority that may tip the scale in Tuesdays preliminary election.

Marcela Garca can be reached at marcela.garcia@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @marcela_elisa.

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Dont count out the Republican vote in the Boston mayoral election - The Boston Globe

According to one of Mr. Ahmadis passengers, a colleague who regularly commuted with him, the ride home was filled with their usual laughing and banter, but with one difference: Mr. Ahmadi kept the radio silent, as he was afraid of getting in trouble with the Taliban. He liked happy music, the colleague said. That day, we couldnt play any in the car.

Mr. Ahmadi dropped off his three passengers, and then headed for his home near the airport. I asked him to come in for a bit, but he said he was tired, the last passenger said.

Although U.S. officials said that at that point they still knew little about Mr. Ahmadis identity, they had become convinced that the white sedan he was driving posed an imminent threat to troops at the airport.

When Mr. Ahmadi pulled into the courtyard of his home which officials said was different than the alleged ISIS safe house the tactical commander made the decision to strike his vehicle, launching a Hellfire missile at around 4:50 p.m.

Although the target was now inside a densely populated residential area, the drone operator quickly scanned and saw only a single adult male greeting the vehicle, and therefore assessed with reasonable certainty that no women, children or noncombatants would be killed, U.S. officials said.

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Biden tells Republicans threatening to sue over vaccine mandate: Have at it as it happened - The Guardian

Republicans like to say that theyre the party of small government and local control, but as with their claims to be the party of fiscal discipline, they often fail to follow through when it runs afoul of their other priorities or simply becomes politically inconvenient.

Weve seen this in recent years with a number of issues, when Republican-led state governments either impose additional restrictions on local governments or refuse to grant them additional flexibility to set policy as they see fit. Usually, when Republican-led governments intervene in this manner, they frame it as a matter of intervening to protect their constituents individual constitutional rights from being trampled by some local entity. While it might be nice to think that Republican politicians always have this noble intention when they run roughshod over local governments, there are a couple of problems with this argument.

The first is a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to say that something is unconstitutional. While we all have our own views of what should and should not be considered constitutional, until the issue is actually considered by the courts, thats simply a matter of opinion. The constitutionality of a particular governmental policy is settled by the courts after a legal challenge, not by the opinion of activists or politicians. While its perfectly valid for an elected official to oppose a policy because they think its unconstitutional, theyre not the ultimate arbiters of constitutionality: The courts are. If any government implements a policy that harms an individual, theyre free to challenge it in court and make their constitutional arguments there. Thankfully, as a constitutional republic, we have a well-established process to do that in this country. Anyone who depends on politicians to protect their own individual liberties is bound to be sorely disappointed.

Another issue with this approach is that it essentially short-circuits the democratic process at the local level. When local governments make policy, their own constituents have every opportunity to have their voices heard throughout the process. If a decision is made by elected officials, citizens can appeal to them directly to reverse or modify the policy. If that fails, in many jurisdictions they may take it to the ballot box via a referendum campaign and overturn it themselves. If thats not available as an option, they can always use it as an issue in the next election in order to oust the local elected official(s) and reverse that decision. This isnt simply a theoretical process: Weve seen it play out time and time again in Maine. Selectmen and school board members have lost re-election because they dismissed staff without adequate explanation or implemented some controversial policy. These same opportunities exist during, and after, an emergency like the current pandemic.

So, the usual explanations for Republicans to intervene in local governing are little more than excuses: Theyre not the only option for people to have their voices heard or have their rights protected. Instead, as is often the case in politics, in fact the opposite is true. If a state government restricts a local government on a constitutional basis, its often because they dont think the courts are likely to side with their position. Theyre also probably not intervening because they have a lack of faith in the local democratic process, but because they know their supporters are unlikely to prevail at the local level. For the most part, these explanations are little more than bad-faith justifications for policy based on ideology designed to appeal to one partys base.

In the course of ordinary events, that would merely make for justifiable charges of hypocrisy that could be debated throughout the next campaign. During an emergency, though, hamstringing the ability of local governments to effectively respond could be a matter of life and death. Weve seen this during the pandemic, when Republican states have restricted or attempted to restrict local governments from imposing measure that may well be necessary for public safety.

The continued importance of local control during an emergency goes in both directions: Just as urban areas in Republican-led states may need more restrictions, rural areas in Democratic-led states may need far fewer. Our federalist constitutional principles shouldnt be abandoned during a crisis, but neither should a particular ideology be elevated over legitimate public safety concerns. The response to any emergency ought to be a practical matter, rather than becoming yet another issue thats the subject of partisan political debate.

Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins.He can be contacted at:[emailprotected]Twitter:@jimfossel

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Jim Fossel: Republicans should be the party of local control - Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel

Earlier this month, House Minority LeaderKevin McCarthy responded to a demand by the committee for telecom companies topreserve records related to the attack by threatening retribution.

If these companies comply with the Democratorder to turn over private information, they are in violation of federal lawand subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States,McCarthy said in a statement posted to Twitter. More aggressively, he addedthat the Republican majority will not forget if the companies comply with themajority.

Other Republicans have made similar arguments, and a group of GOP lawmakers sought to try to counter the committees requestby demanding that social media and telecom companies preserve thecommunication and phone records of Democrat representatives for futureinvestigative usea request that doesnt relate in any serious way to January 6.

McCarthy and other congressional Republicans,including those the committee is reportedly seeking records for, have sincebeen arguing that the 30-some telecom companies that received the request arelegally obligated not to comply. That argument was called into question bylegal experts, though. In response to McCarthys argument that telecom companiesare required to protect the records the committee is asking for, former Federal Communications Commission Chair TomWheeler was among the many experts who said those laws dont apply here.

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January 6 Committee Tightens the Screws Despite Republican Warnings - The New Republic

Winning over the Ohio Republican Partyshouldn't be a tall task for Gov. Mike DeWine.

But the state party's66-member governing body will meet Friday without considering an endorsement for DeWine, Ohio's incumbent GOP governor running for reelection in 2022.

Instead, the Ohio Republican Party will consider endorsements for state supreme courtcontenders.The Ohio GOP could endorse DeWine at a future meeting their next one is set for December but some state central committee members frustrated withhow the governor handled COVID-19 are trying to block any endorsement.

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Strongsville GOPleader Shannon Burns said local Republicans don't want the state Republican party to endorse in "legitimate primary races," such as Ohio governor and U.S. Senate.

DeWinefaces a primary from former U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci and Canal Winchester farmer Joe Blystone. U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, of Troy, is also considering a bid. The U.S. Senate race is an even more crowded primary.

More: In battling COVID-19, Gov. DeWine infuriated some fellow Republicans. What does that mean for reelection?

Endorsements have been a divisive topic among Republicans in recent years with some still bristling over the Ohio Republican Party's endorsement of then-Gov. John Kasich for president in 2016. Kasich lost the GOP primary to then-candidate Donald Trump despite winning one state: Ohio.

Renacci, who sought and won the Ohio GOP's endorsement for U.S. Senate in 2018, said he doesnt think anybody should endorse until candidates file officially and even then its up to the voters to make that decision, not the parties.

I believe the problem is any time the hand of the state central committee goes on top of endorsing somebody, what that does is give that individual additional resources and money and many Republicans in Ohio think thats wrong, Renacci said.

Renacci, who chairs Medina Countys GOP, said the state party should instead focus on supporting candidates to run and helping county party operations across the state.

The divide over DeWine was exacerbated by the Ohio Republican Party's $500,000 donation to the governor's reelection campaign. The party also donated money or in-kind services to the remaining GOP state officeholders.

Chairman Bob Paduchik explained the sum in an Aug. 11 letter to state central committee members: "ORP has a longstanding tradition of supporting incumbent Republican elected officials during their term of office."

Paduchik also wrote that any decision to endorse 2022 candidates would come from a majority vote of the governing body.

When might that decision come? I cant get into internal deliberations about a timeline," Ohio Republican Party spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

Clermont County Republican Party Chairman Greg Simpson said he wants the state party to endorse DeWine for reelection. He said endorsements can help GOPcandidates, and DeWine has done a good job under impossible circumstances.

"Theres no road map for what he had to do," Simpson said.

Mary Ann Christie, a central committee member and former Madeira mayor, said she would prefer for voters choose the primary winner and have the state party back that person.

"There shouldnt be any endorsements going on," she said.

USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau chief Jackie Borchardt contributed.

Jessie Balmert is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Akron Beacon Journal, Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

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Will the Ohio Republican Party endorse Gov. Mike DeWine's reelection bid? Not this week - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Snapshot of the moment: On the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001, days after the president announced vaccination mandates intended to stop the 9/11-every-two-days death toll caused by the COVID pandemic, a Washington, D.C., rally planned for next Saturday celebrating people who invaded the Capitol Building and tried to overturn a free and fair election may become the flashpoint for further political violence because an astounding number of Republicans have been brought to believe Democrats are running a cannibal pedophile ring with Hollywood elites as part of a larger plot to take over the world.

Twenty years ago this morning, as I stood before a bank of televisions and watched the Twin Towers swaying in their death throes, I had a vision of what was to come. It was ridiculously incomplete, to be sure Nostradamus himself couldnt have pulled President Trump out of his hat but those events in combination with the people in power at that moment assured me we were headed for some very dark places.

Twenty years later, and all I can say is, I had no idea it would be like this. By this, I mean members of the very same Republican Party that pounced on 9/11 to wrap itself in the flag while attacking the Taliban and then Iraq has transmogrified into a pack of neo-Confederate would-be warriors, some of whom see the Talibans resurgence in Afghanistan as a model for future endeavors. The GOP was bad enough back then remember John Ashcroft shrouding the stone breasts of a statue so as not to be tempted, or something? but this new breed is thoroughly around the bend.

You cant blame it all on an economy that left them behind. A whole lot of these Republicans drive cars that cost more than your average three-bedroom house see: the gun-toting McMansion couple who got famous on the right-wing circuit for menacing peaceful protesters with an AR-15. What most of these people share in common is a frenzied terror that being white in America might be becoming less of a power ticket than it used to be, and hating Muslims 20 years ago has metastasized into hating everyone and everything that might threaten their centuries-old supremacy. Even you. Especially you.

If that includes disrupting and destroying elections, so be it. David Frum, the George W. Bush speechwriter who helped that Republican president sell fear to a traumatized nation, made an observation once. If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, he predicted, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.

It turns out Frum was only half right. They are rejecting democracy wholesale (see: Trumps Big Lie), but in their tumbledown rush to please a failed real estate mogul, they are also abandoning the flaccid strictures of basic conservatism. Look no further than Texas and Florida, where right-wing governors are dropping the hammer on local governments and small business over COVID mask mandates.

Im so old, I remember when local government and small business were the reasons conservatives claimed they existed in the first place. Now, they exist to please Trump, and have gone so far out into the ether that people like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, John Boehner and God-help-us even George W. Bush are considered to be too squishy-lefty to be tolerated in proper Republican circles.

All that, and they have foot-soldiers now, shock troops dressed in their finest tac gear and armed to the last tooth. These brigands are insinuating themselves into the ranks of anti-mask and anti-vax fanaticism, to the point that any school board meeting on these topics is likely to descend into a parking lot brawl, with fathers screaming at school board members, We will find you.

* * * * *

Flipping through the TV channels on Thursday night, I came across the first game of the NFL season. Someone was performing the national anthem, and I caught gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. The thought came of itself, immediate and unbidden Not in Afghanistan, not anymore and I fell down the stairwell of 20 years, again.

Thats been happening quite a bit lately, as this grim anniversary has lurked on the far side of news reports try to contain your shock about how our disastrous, useless, calamity war in that country came to a disastrous end. I mashed the buttons on the remote until some show about growing carrots came on, and I watched for a while in search of elusive calm; the very last thing I wanted to see was the God damned war machine flyover that has become a stinking staple of sporting events ever since the whole country went sideways into war, fear and failure.

Please clap, right? Twenty years, 20 miles of bad road, millions dead, damaged or displaced, trillions of dollars deftly handed to the fortunate few who sell the bullets and the bombs, criminal profiteers and their political enablers walking unencumbered in the daylight, hauling down small fortunes in speakers fees, and more again in fees for commentator gigs with the murderously complicit corporate news media.

All of it aftermath, the consequences of getting everything wrong since that day, and it has all only just begun, because a segment of the population spent 20 years bathing in far-right Republican Kool-aid the best stuff for fundraising, dontcha know and came out of the tub orange with rage, oblivious to the absurdities and the brazen picking of their pockets. Every time I see a vehicle with a Trump sticker next to an American flag sticker next to a Confederate flag sticker, a tiny part of my prefrontal lobe turns into pus and leaks out of my ear.

When did it start? Trump? The Tea Party? Newt Gingrich? Ronald Reagan? Richard Nixon? Barry Goldwater? Ayn Rand? Henry Ford? Appomattox? Wounded Knee? Jamestown? Cristbal Coln? From what bleak corner came the original sin that set us pinwheeling into this vortex of racism, greed, ignorance and violence?

Answer: Yes.

Upon this anniversary, I offer a dollop of purest truth to that cohort: Osama bin Laden and his friends got more than everything they came for 20 years ago, and you are the proof.

To the rest, I humbly proffer a bit of wisdom from Helen Keller: Rights are things which we get when we are strong enough to make our claim to them good.

To properly consecrate this day, endeavor to be stronger than those who seek to shred your rights out of a misguided fear that they are losing theirs. Quite an enormous amount depends on it.

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20 Years After 9/11, Republicans Are the Greatest Threat to the United States - Truthout